Romans 14:7-9 For none of us lives to himself, and no man dies to himself.… Each living man bears a relation to his whole race: his having lived will never cease to be felt throughout the universe. We own each other, and God owns us all. A man never stands alone, unrelated to anything, but his closest relation is always to his Creator. A willow tree may stand far from the banks of the stream, and with no apparent support, except from the ground about its trunk; but what are its roots doing? Down burrowing amid the rocks, forcing a way through the earth, seeking for openings, pushing whithersoever is the smell of moist soil, diving to the level of the cool well, and drinking deep of its nourishing waters, shooting out by the brook side many, many rods away, till its banks are fringed like a shawl, seeking everywhere for nutriment, which gives life to the tree above them. This is what the roots are doing; and man is like a tree, only his roots shoot upward as well as downward; his firmest tie is to the heart of God, as his surest and best supply is from thence; but he is also indissolubly connected with all below him and round about him. Who, then, can say, "I am mine own; I stand alone, unrelated, unlinked, solitary, uninfluenced and uninfluencing"? Such a thing cannot be; and so it is written by the unerring pen of inspiration — "None of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself." (H. W. Beecher.) Parallel Verses KJV: For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself.WEB: For none of us lives to himself, and none dies to himself. |
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